


your kingdom in the sand

by irishais



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, G O D, look i literally just cannot accept the end of kingsglaive, lunyx, this is her fault, twocatstailoring made me do it, y'all can blame her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-30 16:40:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13955709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irishais/pseuds/irishais
Summary: Turning back changes everything. Canon-divergence, directly post-Kingsglaive. Lunyx, one-shot.





	your kingdom in the sand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TwoCatsTailoring](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwoCatsTailoring/gifts).



The old gods are unkind, and the old kings, unfair.

The thought hits like a warship. Lunafreya stops, _stops_ in her egress from Insomnia, the ruined, ravaged wake of it a trail she is not willing to retrace, but does, turning, bolting back into hell on earth. Destruction and daylight make a nightmarish mix; she follows the worst of it to the epicenter.

The world is unkind, in the beauty of dawn as it breaks around them, the Oracle and the dying Glaive. He looks like ash, a fire burned up from the inside, and she is afraid to touch him at first, afraid that his skin will crisp and vanish beneath her fingertips.

 _My duty is my destiny_.

Nyx Ulric is not allowed to die.

The ring is in her pocket.

“--Luna--”

His voice sounds like the scorched aftermath of a forest fire, his fingers find her wrist, his skin flakes off in the gentle breeze.

The ring is in her pocket.

“Be still,” she breathes. “Just for a moment.”

But he never listens to her, does he? He won't listen to anyone, struggling upright even as she tries to keep him steady.

“You should-- why are you still _here_ \-- where’s Libertus?”

His voice catches on a cough that brings blood to his lips; her chest tightens in immediate response. Luna brushes her fingers along his cheek, far too cold beneath her touch. Her other hand slips into her pocket, curling around the ring.

“You’re terrible at following orders.”

Nyx’s smile seems stretched, pulled too tautly across his teeth, like it hurts to complete the action, a man so close to death there is no hope of coming back to a brighter light than the one at the far end of a distant tunnel. 

"Hear that...a lot..."

Rationally, Lunafreya knows she’s too late, that this is a failed quest, doomed from the start. He isn’t dying of starscourge; he’s dying because of senseless, _useless_ war, a deal with the devils of the past. Glauca is dead, Niflheim’s daemons destroyed, and yet, he still _dies_.

All he wanted was a future, and all he gets is a heroic end, one more broken promise.

Lunafreya knows all of this. She isn’t stupid (this is the stupidest decision she will ever make, risking her life for that of a man she barely knows, a man who may have saved her only because he was duty-bound.)

It takes a great deal of effort to shift him, to lift his body into her lap, off the rubble. He is heavy, pale, his hair too dark against ashen skin, braids coming free, blood across his temple. She wants to weep.

"You fool," Luna whispers instead, pushing it around the lump in her throat. He is not allowed to die, but she doesn't know if she will be able to save him, if they won't both simply be incinerated as punishment for the sheer audacity of _hope_.

“You know me,” Nyx rasps. His eyes loll shut, open abruptly, trying to keep himself awake even as he seems to fade away. She has to bend her head to catch his words. “--Always gotta be the hero.”

“Not always." And when she catches his lips with hers, his blood dances copper on her tongue. The ring scorches around her finger, the fire bursts ablaze between them.

The gods are cruel, the kings are unkind.

(She hears Regis’ voice, as they cast their judgement of this princess, this Oracle, this captive war-bride-- he smiles, and she sees Noctis’ face refracted in his eyes, in the breaking of a childhood promise, in the long-past attack on Tenebrae.)

_we have found this warrior worthy._

Sometimes, though, they are not.

The ancient ring leaves a deep, dark brand on her finger, but the burn is inconsequential as Nyx’s hands come tangling into her hair, as he _lives._


End file.
